


Broken Places

by sadoeuphemist



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Life Is Strange: Before The Storm Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-11
Updated: 2018-01-11
Packaged: 2019-03-03 11:24:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13340244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sadoeuphemist/pseuds/sadoeuphemist
Summary: “Why do we keep coming back to this shitty junkyard?” Rachel says. “What good thing ever happened here?”Chloe and Rachel talk it out.





	Broken Places

It’s funny, how much this feels like a happy ending. 

When William had died, been ripped out of her life, there hadn’t been anything so simple as finality. There had just been this howling void, a loneliness that felt like it would never be filled, that had clung to her and tattered and worn thin with time and had every so often surged back as raw as it had ever been. She’d told Rachel the truth. What sort of ending could she have expected from that? 

And yet, here’s Rachel, newly freed from the hospital, sauntering into American Rust as if there’s nowhere else in the world she has to be. Rachel, her parents banished from her mind, their presence relegated to wry smirks and dismissive shrugs. Rachel, all her plans and schemes put aside, seemingly content to lie back and recuperate, her hair golden in the sunlight as it spills across Chloe’s shoulder. 

Rachel, her hand still drifting to the stitches on her arm, fingers twitching like she has half a mind to pluck the wound open. 

“Hey,” says Chloe, and carefully moves Rachel’s fingers away from the stitches. Puckered skin, plastic threading, raised and ridged and inflamed. Ready to heal over into a scar. “I get that this is a dumb, shitty question and the answer should be obvious. But are you alright?“

Rachel looks down distantly at her own arm, and at Chloe’s hand, and smiles like there’s a joke in there somewhere. “I’m as alright as I’ll ever be.”

Chloe remembers Mr. Amber’s face, the dawning realization. Like he was slowly being hollowed out until there was nothing left behind his eyes. “I don’t know how hard it must have been, to have to deal with your dad after that. I just wish I could’ve been there with you the whole time, or -”

“No, it’s fine,” Rachel says. “He doesn’t matter. Not to me. Not anymore.” Her eyes drift across the junkyard as if she’s seeing it for the first time. “He’s irrelevant. He’s just silently tearing himself up inside. I think he has a coronary every time he thinks of you. And my mom’s . . . I don’t know, doing the same thing, but even quieter somehow.” She looks back to Chloe with a faint smirk. “You are so lucky. Any other parents would forbid me from ever seeing you again. Not like I’d listen to anything they say anyway.” 

“What about Sera?” Chloe says. “You still want to try to meet her?” 

Rachel snorts slightly through her nostrils. “Chloe. She thought me believing in my dad was the better option. And she might have been right! What would I even say to her? I don’t have anything to say to the parents I have now.” 

“She just –“ She has said the words _They just wanted you to be happy_ so many times that they are starting to ring false even to her, but what other explanation is there? “She just wanted you to be happy. After all the shit she went through, she was willing to never see you again because she was so afraid she would ruin your life. That’s how much she loved you.” Chloe manages a smile. “And then I blabbed and ruined your life anyway.” 

And then Rachel is laughing again as she shoves Chloe’s arm. “Chloe! You definitely did not ruin my life."

“You sure?” she says. “I feel like, um, I might’ve come pretty close.” 

“No, no, it’s funny, but . . . It’s kind of bearable now? Now that my dad knows he’s absolutely never going to be able to fix any of this.” Rachel presses the heel of her palm against her forehead, rubbing a flush into her skin. “Ugh, you must think this is so dumb, but, I don’t know, I’m okay living in the same house with him again. He knows he’s a scumbag and I know he’s a scumbag, so . . . he doesn’t ever ask for anything and I don’t ever give it to him.”

“No, that totally makes sense,” Chloe says. “It’s like my mom and David. They’re definitely gonna get married. They’re like, so sweet on each other it’s disgusting. He’s going to pop the question any day now, and she’s going to say yes, and I’m going to have a brand-new step-douche.” 

Rachel grimaces in sympathy. “Oh wow, that sucks.” 

“Yeah. But . . . she’s happy, you know? He’s happy, and it’s freaking me out to see David smiling and talking like a human being. I mean, displaying an emotion besides smug douchebaggery or constipated rage. And I still hate his guts, and I hate that he’s moved in, and I hate that he’s a part of our lives for good now, but –“ Chloe can see them now, doing a slow dance in the kitchen, conjuring up all the attendant emotions of revulsion and guilt and resentment and uncertainty and the one in high in her chest that she can’t quite name . “He’s part of our lives now. The worst possible thing happened. And, y’know. I’m living with it.” 

“Mm,” Rachel says. “It’s not even that I’m taking his side over hers, or anything. They’re both fucked up. It’s all fucked up. They were both palling around with psychos like Damon Merrick. It’s like one big fucked-up romantic comedy.” She puts on a mask of shock. “’You know Damon? No kidding! I was hiring Damon to get rid of you! What are the odds!’ No wonder they fell in love.” 

Rachel’s voice goes flat. “No wonder they made a kid like me.” 

It’s funny, how much this felt like a happy ending. A few quiet acres of sunken cars and hollowed-out appliances and the cast-off scaffolding of other people’s lives. All the broken things come shuddering to a rest, bearing each other’s weight, counting the years until they rust through and come crumbling down. 

“You know that’s not true,” Chloe says, her voice thick. “You’re nothing like them.”

Rachel doesn’t make a response, just stares into the distance with that perpetually bemused smile. That empty satisfaction with everything she has left. 

“You wanted to run away from them!” Chloe says again. “You aren’t like them. You’re not. You don’t have to live like them, you don’t have to be anything you don’t want to be! I thought –“ Her hands close onto a pallet and press against splintered wood. “I thought that’s what all this was for.”

Rachel makes a small affirmative grunt, rises to her feet. “’Mm. I could do anything I wanted with my life, everyone keeps telling me that. We could travel the world. See the stars.” She flings her arms out and spins slowly, eyes whirling across the vista of gutted cars and cinderblocks and metal barrels bleeding rust. Her hands fall to her side. “Why do we keep coming back to this shitty junkyard?” she says. “What good thing ever happened here?” 

There’s a pit in Chloe’s gut. The whole junkyard is suddenly precious to her, a promenade of salvageable things: chairs and signs and tapestries, baseball bats and batteries, all the cast-off furnishings of a dozen different homes. They could have lived like this. She tries to smile. “This is where I found Ol’ Betsy here.”

“Ol’ Bet-?” Rachel shakes her head, thrown off-cue. “No, we are absolutely not calling the truck -“ 

“Ol’ Betsy,” Chloe insists, swinging one arm over the cab of her truck. “My bosom buddy. My faithful and loyal companion.” 

Rachel rolls her eyes. “No, you’re not a fucking prospector. I’m not calling the truck that, that’s final.” 

“It’s my truck,” Chloe says with a shit-eating grin. “And Ol’ Betsy doesn’t appreciate being talked about like she’s not around.”

“Chloe, for fuck’s sake, cut it out,” Rachel snaps, and Chloe falls silent. 

“It – it’s ours,” Chloe says at last. “The truck, the shack, the – the tapestry, all of it.” A tapestry, for god’s sake. It all feels so small now that she’s said it out loud, just another tiny scrap she’s clawed for. 

“Ours?” says Rachel. She holds her arms out to the side, hands grasping and empty. A breeze whispers through the hollow cars and sends paint flakes and candy wrappers skittering across the grass. “What did I ever do to make any of it?” 

Rachel’s everywhere in the junkyard. The salvaged seat covers, the clothes laid out on a wooden pallet, the length of her, the breadth of her, Rachel’s legs across her lap. Everything she’s done to make a space for Rachel to stay. Maybe none of that counts for anything at all. “I would have never even come here if it wasn’t for you!” 

“Yeah?” says Rachel, and a small, cold smile curves around the edges of her mouth. “Maybe you’d be better off.” 

“Rachel –“ she tries to say. 

“No!” Rachel says. “I mean it. Look at this, really look at this.” There’s that dramatic emphasis in her voice now, the one she substitutes for sincerity. Rachel Amber paces the junkyard like a stage, all dramatic flourish. “This is where we came after I ruined our afternoon. This –“ She scoops up a bottle by its neck, wields it like a prop. “This is where you opened up to me, where you trusted me, and I told you to fuck off because I was too pissed at my dad to give a shit about your feelings! This is – I made you tag along with me because I thought it’d be a fun fucking romp, and this is where I threw you away the moment you stopped being useful to me.” In one sudden motion she sends the bottle arcing into the ground, a flashbulb shattering, a stage light blazing out. “Remember? Remember any of that?” 

“I – I remember how much you were hurting.” One step closer to her. Another. Her hand on Rachel’s shoulder. “Of course you couldn’t tell me, we barely knew each other yet! And I remember everything you said to me afterwards.” There’s an inch between them, Rachel’s breath ragged on her cheek, and yet if she could just close that one inch. “You think I’ve never flipped out at people because I was pissed about my dad? Rachel, do you know who you’re talking to here?” 

There’s a flicker of doubt across Rachel’s face, and then she pushes through it, voice rising into her big soliloquy. “It’s more than that!” she says. “It’s – You have to see it, Chloe, you have to. This is where we come after I fuck everything up. It’s where we come when there’s nowhere else left. This isn’t where we met. This isn’t where we danced the night away.” She stomps across flaking planks of lumber. They shudder and cough out dry rot. “I lit a fire and I burnt that place down. This isn’t where I got to my knees and promised –where I swore to you I would never let you go. That’s Blackwell, and I got you expelled!

“This isn’t a good place, Chloe,” she says. “You’re the one who built every single good thing here. You! None of that is because of me. This is your truck, your hideout. You put all the effort into it because you’re an amazing badass who can take something that’s a useless piece of shit and make it functional again. But what have I added here? It’s nothing but screaming matches and fights and – and –“ She grabs at the stitches running up her arm. “This is where I picked a fight with a psycho and nearly got us both killed!“

And there’s the sign that Chloe ran over in her desperate rush to get Rachel to the hospital. Somewhere among those piles of trash, there’s a broken mannequin head, there are the plastic fragments of a camera. There’s the car her father died in lurking somewhere in the shadows, squatting and bloody and blind. This is where the used syringes and pointed shards and all the ugly discarded parts of Arcadia Bay live. This is where they sleep at night.

“I made it for us!” Chloe says. “I - I made it for you.” 

Rachel backs off, shaking her head. “It’s trash, Chloe, and you’ve made something amazing out of it, but it was trash to start with and - and you deserve something better. You need to want better things, Chloe. You need to make better friends.”

“That’s not true!” Chloe says. 

“Oh, Chloe,” Rachel says, all condescending certainty. “I made all of this happen. Damon Merrick, the fire, you getting kicked out of school and – and Sera, and my dad and my mom, and all the lives that were ruined . . . all because I wanted things, I wanted things without knowing why I wanted them, or if they were even worth it, and I didn’t care who I had to hurt to get them.” 

Rachel Amber is an actress. Rachel Amber is an actress because there’s nothing else inside of her. Everything she loves is burnt and cast aside. There’s always a new role to play, a new person she wants to be. “And you, Chloe. I dragged you into all of this because I didn’t want to go through it alone. I made you think I’m something that I’m not. I did all of this to you.” 

Rachel Amber is manipulative. Rachel Amber’s dangerous. Rachel Amber’s just using you, Chloe. She’s going to get bored. She’s going to find another pet project, another passion. Her temper’s going to flare up one day, and she’ll set her jaw and put aside everything she ever loved about you. She’s going to burn another forest into ash. And this time, you’re not going to survive. 

And always there’s been that intrusive thought, that temptation - to just cut to the heart of insecurity, to call Rachel a phony to her face, to say the worst thing possible and tear their relationship apart so that there would be nothing and nowhere left to hide. Make the worst thing in the world happen, and live with it. How else could they trust each other otherwise? 

“Oh, bull-shit,” Chloe says. 

Rachel’s haloed, expectant, waiting to be carved open. 

“Don’t try that bullshit with me.” Chloe grins and doubles over laughing. “You made this all happen? Fuck off. This was all your dad’s insane plan. And Damon Merrick was a homicidal drug lord who was probably hurting people even before you were born. You? Oh my god, you tried to hit him with a stick and he nearly killed you! What, you think you manipulated everyone into that situation? I’m the one who set up the meeting with a drug dealer to begin with, you dumbass!” 

Rachel’s eyes go wide, and for once, she’s speechless. 

“Yeah,” Chloe says, and loops her arms around Rachel’s waist, pulls her closer, plants her ass on the back of her truck. “I said it. You fucking poser. You got me expelled, huh? Never mind Wells and his list of infractions. DA’s daughter, perfect grades, needed a professional delinquent to come with her so that she could skip a day of school for the first time in her life.” She grins like a wolf. 

“W-wow.” Rachel’s blank, off-balance, and it’s delightful to see. “You – Okay. This is new.” She relaxes in Chloe’s grip, sinking to straddle her. 

“Yeah,” Chloe says. Her voice drops and she pulls Rachel closer for a moment. “So shut up about that, okay?” She traces a hand above Rachel’s scar. “You nearly got killed.” 

Rachel shakes her head. “You saved me.” 

“No,” says Chloe, and she can still see her pale and shaken and bleeding out in the seat of her truck, as if the wound runs that deep. “I didn’t.”

“You most definitely hauled my ass to the emergency room before I bled to death.” 

“Yeah, I did, but that – that barely counts for anything.” Chloe shakes her head. “It was all luck. It was – it was all this shit that barely had anything to do with me.” She takes both of Rachel’s hands. “I was so fucking terrified you were going to die. And I couldn’t do anything. And all I could do was – was get you to a hospital and hope you didn’t die.“

“Oh, Chloe,” Rachel whispers, squeezing down on her hands. 

“If the knife had gone one inch deeper,” Chloe says. “Or to the left, or to the right. You’d be dead. I mean, I looked like the big hero, barging into the ER with you in my arms and all that, but the entire thing was almost completely out of my control. Out of anybody’s control.” 

“You saved my life,” Rachel insists. 

“You saved mine,” Chloe says. “But – but sometimes that doesn’t mean anything. You think – someone saved my life. They’ve got to be stronger than me, better than me, they’ve got to be wonderful and amazing and too good to be true.” She looks into Rachel’s eyes. “You came into my life, and totally changed it for the better, and made me forget about all the shit I’m going through, and – you saved me. You’re my angel. That’s totally true. But it doesn’t mean that you have any more control over what’s going on than I do.

“You’re not some puppet master. You’re not some DA calling in favors. You’re not some control freak who spent the last fifteen years blackmailing people to cover up the truth. You – you’re no Machiavelli! You’re not in charge of me. You’re not in control of our relationship. You don’t have any more idea what you’re doing than I do.” Chloe grins. “You’re a big a fuck-up as I am, Rachel Amber.” 

Rachel raises a hand to her mouth, mock-scandalized. “Okay, now that is going too far. That is simply a calumnious slander.” 

“Yeah?” Chloe raises an eyebrow. “But is it true?”

Rachel laughs and hits her arm again. “Chloe Price, you are insufferable,“ she says, and then leans forward and buries her face in Chloe’s neck. They are falling back until they are sprawled out in the truck bed, the world rocking beneath them, lying in each other’s arms. 

“The fire was hella your fault though,” Chloe says after a moment. “Don’t ever do something like that again, you crazy bitch.” 

Rachel laughs quietly, and they lie like that. There’s a small movement, a shift, Rachel mouthing words into her shirt. “I wish I knew how to make you happy,” she says. 

“Of course you-“ 

“Not just right now, not just for a day,” she says fiercely. “Not just promises. Not just telling you things that you want to hear.” She nestles the curve of her head into Chloe’s collarbone, and they fit. “My parents loved me and they loved each other and I loved them and I love you and that’s not enough, not for anyone, not for anyone in my whole fucked-up family. I wish I could make you happy for real. Forever. For the rest of your life.”

She pulls away and looks at Chloe and her eyes are wet. “I don’t know how to do that.”

“I don’t think anyone does,” Chloe says. 

She thinks of her dad, and her mother, and of Max, and of all the people who loved her swept away by fate or choice or time, and how fragile they all were to begin with. She thinks of Rachel, bleeding out on the seat beside her. She thinks of Frank, bleeding from the shoulder, she thinks of Mikey’s broken arm. She thinks of the paper-thin vein of the world, the pulse racing through it. All these grand cruelties, all of these other people’s stories, people loving and dying and hurting each other for no good reason at all. 

What would she do, if she could turn back time? If she knew better? If she knew how they’d hurt her, how she’d hurt them? Would she harden her heart? Would she turn away? Would she cut out those parts of herself? Would she excise what’s left of Max from her notebook, tear out her dad from her dreams? 

How tragic she is. How fortunate. How amazingly lucky she has been to have had all of them in her life. 

She touches Rachel’s cheek.

“So what?” Chloe says. “So what if you have to do it one day at a time?” She pushes a strand of hair away from Rachel’s face and touches the corner of the smile. “I don’t know the magic secret either. I’m just – going to do everything I can for you.” She pulls Rachel down and kisses her, short and sweet. “I’m not expecting you to save me. It’s just – you are, anyway.”

And they are there, together, all among the broken things. And this is one day, and tomorrow is another, and a whole slew of tomorrows stretching out ahead of them, and maybe that is more than enough.


End file.
